Alejandro Corujeira’s artistic trajectory over more than thirty years has demonstrated the lyrical potential of painterly abstraction. With roots in the universal constructivism of Joaquín Torres-Garcia, a pioneering Uruguayan artist who created an alternate narrative of modernist abstraction based on pre-Columbian idioms, Corujeira gradually moved away from the regionalist sensibility of his early works to embrace a fiercely autonomous practice inspired by an abundant array of eclectic and diverse references: the tapestries and prints of Anni Albers, influenced by Andean and Mesoamerican textiles; Brice Marden and Mark Tobey’s painterly interpretations of Eastern calligraphy; the poet Paul Celan’s interrogation of language and loss; the neumes of premodern musical notation, to name only a few.

This work is one of a selection of sculptures made early in the artist’s career in the 1990s selected by the artist as a dialogue in conjunction with the new works. The influences at the root of Corujeira’s practice are clear here, in this case referencing the Intihuatana Stone in Machu Picchu, a ritual stone associated with serendipity and the astronomical calendar.

“There are certainly places with a particular energy that one can connect with and that are conducive to creativity. Before initiating my studies in fine arts, I travelled several times to the Andean region of northern Argentina: there I found a different way of understanding the world. I was initially interested in the forms I saw in ceramics, textiles, and objects, but then I gradually tried to understand how these forms were generated and how they were related to the thought and way of life there. The result of all those trips are the sculptural works presented in this exhibition, which were made in the early 1990s but never exhibited until now. Like the 1963 album by Bill Evans, Conversations with Myself, where the jazz pianist used the method of overdubbing to engage in conversation with himself, I see these sculptures interacting similarly with my most recent works. There is a light in the sculptures that converses very well with these new works, even though their forms are different and linked to certain symbolic spaces, such as the mask or the plaza, places of attraction and centrality. In a broad sense, these symbolic spaces allow me to feel the continuous presence of poetry, which I accompany as diverse voices. I have always had a special appreciation for this literary genre: my relationship to poetry is formed by the use of words that aspire to revelation and excess, something that I also strive for in painting.”